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The Real Show and Tell!


War isn't pretty! It's goddam awful and the death, mutilation and suffering endless.

A critical question, and issue, is to what extent a war is to be shown graphically to the folks "back home"........... It's a dilemma which faced an AP photographer in Afghanistan. The photo, above, was published. There followed a hew and cry, as The Guardian reports:

"It is a graphic image of the harsh realities of war: the fatally wounded young marine lying crumpled in the mud, his vulnerable face turned to the camera. And it is one the US defence secretary would rather you did not see.

Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, pictured being tended by comrades in southern Afghanistan, died of his injuries soon after. Now the release of this record of the 21-year-old's last moments has divided America, prompting furious debate over the sanitisation of war at a critical time for the military offensive.

Read the complete piece here - and decide, from the arguments for and against, whether the photo ought to have been published.

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